Ontological extension of PROSA for manufacturing network formation

Abstract

The scope of the research is the inter-enterprise communication which is required for the formation of manufacturing network. The overall aim of the research is to develop a simulation platform for the formation of manufacturing networks, scheduling of jobs in the networks and an intelligent assistance system for mending the networks in the event of disturbances. Ontology is normally built from a foundational ontology. But in this paper, we use a reference architecture. The Product-Resource-Order-Staff Architecture (PROSA) is used as the basis for ontology development. This paper presents the development of an ontology used in the formation of manufacturing networks. The ontology is developed to support the entities, their interaction protocol and the knowledge emerging during the auctioning process in the manufacturing domain. The ontology is also used to enable an illustrated investigation of the interactions during the auctioning process. The methodologies involve ontology editing, object-oriented programming and the visualization of the objects and interactions during the network formation and scheduling process. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.